


Spacious Skies

by domesticadventures



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Post-Series, Road Trips, liminal spaces
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-09
Updated: 2017-10-09
Packaged: 2019-01-11 00:18:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12310893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domesticadventures/pseuds/domesticadventures
Summary: The static merges with the rumble of the engine, with Dean’s intermittent snoring, with the thump of the tires as they cross seams in the road. Cas reaches over and takes Dean’s hand in his own.





	Spacious Skies

**Author's Note:**

> [kora](http://beenghosting.tumblr.com/) and i were talking about liminal spaces and now this fic exists (after also bothering her to beta it :D)

There are one hundred twenty-nine miles between one rest stop and the next.

Cas starts digging for change at mile one hundred twenty-eight. By the time they’ve hit the exit, he’s managed to collect a few scattered coins from the glove compartment. He holds his hand out across the seat expectantly. As they come to a stop, Dean digs a few quarters out of his pocket and drops them into Cas’ palm before he opens his door.

Cas rolls his neck as he gets out of the car and makes his way towards the vending machines tucked into an alcove between the bathrooms. Dean follows alongside him, hands in his pockets.

It’s only after Cas has inserted his quarters and plucked his soda from the slot that he pauses.

He stands with his drink in hand, looking at the building, the cars parked in front, the freeway a couple hundred feet away. For a dizzying moment, he wonders if he imagined the past two hours.

“This one’s different,” Dean says. “Last one had more trees and was farther back from the road. Less benches, too.”

Cas nods absently, looking around as he unscrews the bottle cap. Dean is right; it’s not quite the same. “And it didn’t have Mountain Dew.”

Dean chuckles softly. “Clearly this one is superior.” His smile fades as he watches Cas take a long drink, and he threatens, “If you’re really gonna down that whole thing right now, you better take a piss before we get back on the road.”

Cas smiles and puts the bottle to his lips, taking another swig as he looks out at the road. If he squints, he can see another rest stop on the westbound side. He hadn’t noticed it as they’d passed, but he knows exactly where he’d find the vending machines.

\--

Dean made it to 3:18 am before he started nodding off behind the wheel.

Cas offered to drive and said, when Dean protested, “It’s all right. My grace is keeping me up today, anyway.”

“Yeah, all right,” Dean muttered, and pulled to the side of the road so they could switch off.

Now it’s 4:05 am and Cas is in the driver’s seat. Dean is asleep on the passenger side, head tilted back, snoring softly. Outside, the only thing visible for miles is the few dozen feet of asphalt illuminated by the headlights. They’re in a long, empty stretch between cities, and there’s nothing of civilization other than the rare car passing the other way and the occasional solitary light twinkling in the distance. When Cas looks at them head on, they wink out of existence so quickly that he’s unsure whether or not he’s imagined them.

Cas shifts in his seat and turns on the radio with the volume low. He spends a few frustrating minutes fiddling with the dial, trying to find something that will come in clear. Finally, he just gives up and leaves it on static, snippets from different stations fading in and out as the car picks up the signals from out beyond the blackness -- rapid Spanish from one, fire and brimstone evangelism from another, some scattered notes from what he thinks might be “Over the Hills and Far Away.”

The static merges with the rumble of the engine, with Dean’s intermittent snoring, with the thump of the tires as they cross seams in the road. Cas reaches over and takes Dean’s hand in his own.

Dean stirs in his sleep. He sits up a little and asks, “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Cas says, rubbing his thumb across Dean’s knuckles. “Go back to sleep.”

Dean nods, settling back into the seat, and Cas drives.

\--

As they head further east, snow-capped mountains and miles of trees disappear until they’re driving through flat, dry land as far as the eye can see.

They meant to keep driving until they hit Albuquerque, but they give in and pull off the freeway when Dean says he can’t possibly make it to the next rest stop.

As Dean runs off to take a piss in the bushes, Cas stretches his legs, wanders over towards the sign on the edge of the lot. He rolls his head from side to side as he looks around. They’re surrounded on all sides by pale reddish-brown soil dotted with sad little gray-green shrubs in various shapes and sizes. In the distance, down the road past the sign, a cluster of squat brown buildings struggle to distinguish themselves from the dirt. 

Dean appears at Cas’ side a few moments later. “Petrified Forest National Park,” he reads. He shades his eyes with his hand as he scans the horizon. “Well, where the hell is it?”

Cas huffs a laugh. “Beats me,” he says.

He looks up at the sky as they turn and walk back to the car. It’s a pure unbroken blue, vast and dizzying. He pulls out his phone to snap a picture of it before he pulls open the passenger door.

He looks at it later, when they’ve stopped for the night. It doesn’t look like much; just a swatch of color. It’s not quite the same.

\--

“Thank God for twenty-four hour restaurants,” Dean says as they pull into the Burger King parking lot.

The employee who greets them at the counter -- Nick, according to his nametag -- looks as tired as Cas feels. He blinks against the bright florescent lights as Nick says mechanically, “Welcome to Burger King. May I take your order?”

“A number one,” Dean says. “Medium.”

“The same for me, please,” Cas says.

As Nick punches their order into the register, Dean says, “What, not gonna ask us if we wanna supersize ‘em?”

“The ‘90s called. They want their McDonald’s slogan back,” Nick says, sighing. “That’ll be $14.05.”

Dean rolls his eyes, swipes one of his cards, grabs their cups so they can get their drinks and head to a table. “Gosh, I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to find a place to sit,” he says, looking around at the empty restaurant.

Cas frowns at the pristine plastic tables, wrinkles his nose as he breathes in the vaguely chemical smell of whatever they must have used to clean the floors. “Dean,” he says, sighing, when his brain finally catches up.

Dean simply grins as he takes a seat. He spins in his chair while they wait for their order, muttering something about how he’s hilarious.

Cas grabs the food for them when their number is called, sets it down at their table and digs in.

“How’s your burger?” Dean asks around his own bite of food.

Cas chews for a moment. “Exactly like the last Whopper I had,” he decides.

\--

The bunker is the kind of quiet you only get when you’re wrapped in a foot of reinforced concrete and surrounded by miles of uninhabited land, but it isn’t silent. There’s the faint but perpetual hum of machinery from the power plant, and layered on top of that are the sounds of the electric bulbs, of the refrigerator, of the TV, of the bunker’s few inhabitants going about their lives.

It’s nothing like the motels they stay in when they’re on the road. No motel is ever a consistent quiet, regardless of whether they’re on the east coast or the west or somewhere inbetween.

Cas never hears the exact same blend of sounds twice. Today there’s someone watching TV in one of the adjacent rooms -- an action flick, judging by the sounds of the crashes and explosions filtering through the wall between them. There’s a group of college kids hanging out at the pool, laughing and drinking and screeching when one of them pushes another in. There are cars driving by on the highway, and every now and then, a plane flies overhead. It’s never quite the same, yet there’s a sameness to them, too, just as every hunt is different but follows a similar pattern.

They’ve done this before, too -- finished up their case and slept in the next day, waking in the early afternoon curled lazily around one another.

Dean starts at Cas’ mouth and kisses his way down his body, hands steady and warm against his shoulders, his sides, his thighs. They’ve done this dozens of times now, and each time it is both new and familiar, exhilarating and comforting.

Cas sighs contentedly as Dean takes him into his mouth. In the background, this motel’s particular group of strangers go about their lives.

\--

Cas has lost track of the number of gas stations he’s been in, but this one is a bit different. Here, there’s an angel behind the counter.

There’s just enough of his grace left in him that he sees her for what she is, but not quite enough that he recognizes her. She gives him a sideways glance as he examines her nametag. It says her name is Janet. He can’t remember her real one.

“Hello, sister,” Cas says as he pulls out his wallet. “Forty on pump number three, please.”

In response, she looks him up and down, brow furrowed, and says, “What exactly are you now, Castiel?”

“Hmm,” Cas says. His stomach rumbles. He considers the display of chips near the register, spots a brand Dean first introduced him to in-- well, he isn’t sure which state, exactly, just knows it wasn’t this one.

“American, I guess,” Cas says, shrugging, and tosses a bag of Cheetos onto the counter.


End file.
